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Displacement map bake
June 30, 2012 - 3:57am
- 1706 reads
Hi guys,my first post on this forum,I am Marcus from Italy 
I have a simple question: can you tell me how to bake a displacement map (not a vector displacement) from Xnormal?
Thanks
Thx for your answer,I have seen that tutorial time ago in fact I already know how to use Xnormal as you can see in the image below, I have sucessfuly use it to bake different maps to create my texture (normal,ao,curvature map for the edge highlight),I also was a bit vague on my question,because actually the problem is that I suspected that to gain my displacement I need to bake an height map,but some days ago when I have tryied it, it give me a map full of artifacts,something like a "mosaic of triangles" 
hope someone can help me about
The "mosaic of triangles" happens because xN does not subdivide the LP mesh. You must pass it already subdivided to xN and enable the MatchUV option if you used the LP mesh as base mesh for subdivision.
Thanks jogshy,I could never figure out this alone!! 
but I still have a doubt: I load the low in zbrush,I keep dividing & doing project all on top of the hp,but where is this "match uv" option,& how do it works?!!
Because I really need to keep the unwrap shells from the low poly,oterwhise I can't match the displacement bake with the other bakes that I already have
You can enable the matchUV option in xNormal -> LP mesh slot.
When you subdivide the UVs usually are contained into the LP's UV islands, so xN uses that to avoid ray distances or cages ( because the UV's match so the LP-HP attributes like position or normals can be just interpolated ). But, pls, notice you can use this ONLY if your LP mesh is the subdiv0 level of your subdivided and sculpted HP mesh !
Take a look to the DX10 Spiked ball vector-displacement map example for more info.
err...I am still failing to get this,because if I have to import a model with more polygons as a LP (but that actually is something like a "mid poly",with 20.000 or more tris)to avoid the "tris mosaic" artifacts from the height map bake,using match uv & the HP sculpt for the bake,after all this,my "mid poly" model used to get rid of the artifacts on the bake...still have differents uv shells from the actual 300 tris low poly model,so what's the point? :\
Am I missing/misunderstood something? :\
now I go to look at the video,hope it will answer to my doubts
still have differents uv shells from the actual 300 tris low poly model,so what's the point? :\
The UV shells are different but they'll magically work because they're self-contained inside the island's borders.
ok,I think I have get it now,thank you very much jogshy
A last question: if I use the MatchUV I can skip the part where I let Xnormal calculate the max/min ray distance for the bake?
A last question: if I use the MatchUV I can skip the part where I let Xnormal calculate the max/min ray distance for the bake?
Correct.
Thanks for all the info
You need to select "Height Map" in the baking options.
If you are new to xNormal then this video might help
http://eat3d.com/free/xnormal_overview
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